by David Williams
YANGON, Myanmar
Bangladesh officials reportedly travelled to Myanmar on Thursday to negotiate the release of a border guard detained last week after an incident between the two countries.
Local news website BD News 24 reported officials in charge of a Bangladeshi police check point at Teknaf as saying that the team had set off early on two speedboats along the river Naf - which separates the two countries - for the meeting in neighboring Maungdaw town.
Teknaf is in Cox's Bazar at the southernmost point of mainland Bangladesh - an area notorious for people smuggling between the two countries - while Maungdaw is in Myanmar's western Rakhine state, the home of a majority of the country's Muslim Rohingya population.
In recent months such trafficking has come under the international spotlight with thousands of migrants - many of them Rohingya - washing up on Southeast Asian shores following a regional clampdown.
Thursday's visit followed the June 17 detention of Nayek Abdur Razzak following after an incident which saw another Bangladeshi officer shot in what has been reported to have been a "misunderstanding."
On Monday, reports quoting Teknaf Battalion Commander Lt Col Abu Jar Al Jahid said that Myanmar had agreed to return Razzak on one condition - that Bangladesh take in 556 Malaysia-bound human trafficking victims from a contingent of 727 migrants intercepted by Myanmar's navy May 29.
While Myanmar claims that all of the victims are Bangladeshi citizens, Bangladesh wants to verify that none are Rohingya - a term Myanmar does not recognize, preferring to use "Bengali" which suggests the Muslim ethnic group is from Bangladesh.
Bangladesh's government immediately rejected the conditions, Home Minister Assaduzzaman Khan Kamal telling reporters Tuesday that Bangladesh will not accept the boat people without first verifying their nationalities.
"We repeatedly told them we would not bring anyone back without 100 percent scrutiny," said Kamal, adding that by asking for Bangladesh to accept all the victims Myanmar "went too far and were asking for too much."
He added, however, that he was hopeful a deal could be struck without the condition because Myanmar had agreed to treat the issues separately.
Earlier this month, Bangladesh accepted another 200 trafficking victims it had verified as Bangladeshi citizens.
Thousands of migrants from Myanmar’s Rohingya Muslim community and from Bangladesh have been left stranded at sea - many of them having setting off from Cox's Bazar - after a crackdown by Thai authorities scared people smugglers into abandoning their boats last month.
The nationality of the migrants is especially contentious in Myanmar because the government denies that the Rohingya are a genuine ethnicity, and claims the group are in fact interlopers from its neighbor.
The Rohingya are largely stateless and are described by the United Nations as one of the most persecuted groups in the world.
Tens of thousands have fled Myanmar on crowded boats in recent years.
Many live under apartheid-like conditions in northwest Rakhine state, near Bangladesh’s border, following Buddhist led rioting that forced tens of thousands to flee their homes.
Since May 1 -- when people trafficking camps, later found to be the sites of graves, were discovered in Thailand -- Myanmar has refused to acknowledge that persecution of the Rohingya is the root cause of the boat exodus.
Officials maintain that traffickers are to blame.
Myanmar complained of "finger pointing" at a regional summit in Thailand May 29 to discuss the crisis, and urged countries to work together rather than place blame.
*Anadolu Agency correspondent Kaamil Ahmed reported on this story from London.
